Google is scrapping its planned changes for third-party cookies in Chrome

Google’s plan to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome is officially over. In an update on Tuesday, Google Privacy Sandbox VP Anthony Chavez says the company has decided “to maintain our current approach to offering users third-party cookie choice in Chrome.”

For years, critics have argued that Google’s Privacy Sandbox could harm advertisers and violate privacy laws, while the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) told users to opt out of the program, saying it “is still tracking your internet use for Google’s behavioral advertising.” Last week, a US judge found that Google “willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts” in the advertising technology industry, and the competition regulator in the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), has been investigating its evolving series of proposals to address concerns that they might give Google an unfair advantage.

Google’s Privacy Sandbox initiative was announced in 2020 with plans to block third-party cookies in Chrome by default, similar to Firefox and Safari. It has made several changes to the initiative over the years, such as proposals like its Topics API to assign interests to users based on their web activity and other tools it said could …read more